Writings by Dave Parrish
Let Us Live in His Eternal Life
This world can lay so much pressure upon people, upon us. This is Satan's allure to get us to work and work, and be under pressure and die.
And though shocking, the "church" today can do the same. What a travesty!
God has given His Son to us all, believers and unbelievers. First the death of His Son, giving His life in our place to pay the eternal sin debt for all sins!! Not just for believers, but for all of the sins of the World. That is really great news, but that alone does not save. Yet it gets better!
1 John 2:2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. God has been fully satisfied, propitiated by the death of His Son in our place for our sin debt.
But, to be saved, we need life from the dead and the Spirit of that life has been poured out on all flesh! And the Spirit is working to convict the world of the sin of unbelief (John 16:9), and we are to go out and show people what a life of surrender into His life is like!--rest and peace, love and joy. Not needing any longer to work ourselves to death, or stress in the frenzy of Satan's performance call which is upon all who live in the world. Eternal life is God's life and all of us in this life can live free of the rat wheel call of the world's ways!
This is the Good News message to give and to live, that others would heed the call to join us in being born again by the Spirit of God. This is the message of the New Covenant! This is what we are to ring out, vs. ringing church bells. How great is the life of God that is allowed to blossom in the souls and hearts of men and women!
It is about Jesus plus nothing! He is our life, and let us be content with basic food and shelter. Yes, we work our jobs, and with purpose, yet unto the Lord first!
I for one have stepped out of the Church rat race and learning to be free of the world's rat race too. Weird, but once I walked really in faith in the New Covenant truths. I have been able to step away from Old Covenant applications that most pastors seem to want to lay upon me. I don't fight them. I just don't live there, even if they try to get me "back there." Why go back to an old Covenant that never worked. We could not nor can ever do anything "from the flesh" so why try to go back there when we now have a newness of life in Him?
I would encourage you all to dwell in the new life, the miracle of being one in Christ, who is our life. To partake of the Divine nature that is now YOUR NATURE. Ponder this, as born again believers, new Creatures in Christ, our natural response is to not sin! Are you living
out of the new nature, or still trying to be good in the old nature that was and has been crucified with Christ? See Galatians 2:20.
If anyone is interested in knowing more about what we are in Christ, there are a few good books about this. Yet, these books are simply encouragements to live by faith in who we ARE as declared by God in the New Testament letters.
Truth: Life is lived from who you are!! Who you ARE is what God now says you are. Not what a pastors says, or your own thoughts or feelings or emotions. No, what God has said and declared about you in the New Covenant Epistles (Most written by Paul), is your new, true, real reality. But you have to live in them by faith, believing God and not others nor your "feelings." We can miss out on this abundant life by having a heart of unbelief. I lived this way for 13 years of my 15 years as a born-again believer. We have a promised life, just like the children of Israel had a Promised Land. God has given us this promised life already, just like He had given the Israelites the Promised Land. But it is taken and appropriated by faith, which is to believe it as more true than anything else in your life and then to live in it as true. This sounds "magical," but better to use the words "miraculous" and "supernatural!" And it is. Have you chosen to live in who you are, as God say you are?
I can tell you this. When you by faith, choose to live in who you ARE now in all you are in Christ, You will be more and more set free! It is a supernatural life we have--a miracle above all miracles.
The Just shall live by Faith
Col 2:6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.
Col 2:7 Rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it (faith) with thanksgiving.
Col 2:8 Beware lest any man cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
Col 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;
Col 2:10 And you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
Gal 3:2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Gal 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
Gal 3:4 Have you suffered so many things in vain-if indeed it was in vain?
Gal 3:5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
MEDITATIONS ON LIVING BY FAITH
(Living by Principles versus Living by the Faith of the Son of God)
We live in such a Pragmatic World. Get up, go to work, make money, eat, drink, and be merry….
And then the next day, the same, and the same, and the same. Solomon tried to break out of this by doing things, living life to the excess. But at the end, he still had the empty heart of man, of man without God’s filling!!
Tooth decay, you need a filling of mercury or new type enamel. Heart decay, you need a filling of the Holy Spirit!!
We all are born with decayed hearts--born in sin. So now that I have been reborn--born by the Spirit, Why do I not have the promised joy and peace when I got saved!! The old man lives on what he acquires, touches, tastes, sees, smells, and hears. The New Man-- the new creature in Christ lives BY FAITH!! By Nonsense (no senses)!!
This is a totally New Life!! The Life of God (Zoe in the Greek) is now to be my life, but it is only appropriated spiritually!! We live in an age of pragmatic and practical “Christian” living. I don’t know if we have many Pastors who are living in the Spirit of God. They seem focused on practical living principles to live as “better Christians”……
The Word of God says it directly: Be crucified in Christ!! No more practical principles of living… This is just religion. Religion got Israel nowhere. We now live in the New Covenant, better promises!! We can rest in Jesus, and let His Life, now be our life. Christ is our life!! But this Life is lived in the nonsense. It cannot be lived or ascertained by the five senses. The natural, carnal man cannot live in this new world. If you are having problems living in the Spirit, it is because: First: You are not saved. Second: You are saved but you still love yourself instead of dying to self and letting Jesus in You be your Life!! In my life, to get to the point of surrendering more and more into the Life of Jesus, I had to run the extent of living in the corruption of loving and serving myself!! It has brought me waves and waves of corruption. God didn’t bless my will, nor did He fill me with His Spirit for me to do “my will”. I have lived in this desert for about 10 years, but I now have Spiritual ears to hear!! Ears of faith, of utter surrender into whatever He has for me!! He is God, whatever plan, life, will He has is better, and I will accept it and enjoy it when I live by Faith and no more by sight!!
Rom 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
Rom 1:17 “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written. The just shall live by faith.”
This last sentence has the word “faith” in it three times!! When one is born again, no longer do we live here!!! Oh that we would teach this to others right at the start instead of teaching them how to live “practical pragmatic Christian lives” all in their own power. The wisdom of man permeated into the Church brings death. Only living by the Spirit in the Word of God, in the Life and faith of the Living Jesus, in His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, brings True Life!!
This is not that hard, but again, one must accept the necessary sentence of death of self!! This death of self is agreeing with Scripture, what it says about our righteousness:
See Roman 3:10-18 and Isaiah 64:6.
Isa 64:6 “But we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousness is as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
We have to believe Jesus that apart from Him, from His Life living in me, I can do nothing. But that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!! This is pretty awesome stuff!! The Life of God living in the soul and through the body of man!!
Ephesians Chapter 1 is God’s love letter to the called out ones (The Church). He is stating that He knew us and loved us in Jesus before the foundation of the world!!! Why is He telling us this? So we will walk and live by Faith, in the Spirit and Live in His Life!! This is radical, because we are so pulled by the flesh, it needs, its five senses craving more and more and being offended by the Nonsense of living by the Spirit.
But what can be better than having the Life of God be your/my Life???
We receive all the benefits of the Kingdom of God in the here in now in our heart of hearts:
Rom 14:17 “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”
And this Life is Eternal, forever and ever and ever. We in our soul/spirit now connected with His Spirit and will never die!! We just shed this old tent for an eternal body when we pass away from this earth into the full presence of God!!
I surmise that our greatest worship of God is here and now!! In heaven there will be no great struggle to offer the sacrifice of praise. But here, we have the old man lurking, that we have to be crucified from, we have the reproach of Christ on us as the world looks on us as fools. And we don’t see the living God with our senses, but only spiritually heart to heart. We have to live in Nonsense.
But we receive all the Spiritual Blessings in heavenly places when we do walk and live by faith in the Spirit!!
Today I choose to start living in nonsense and by the Spirit!! From Faith to Faith!! I choose to no longer care what the world thinks of me. I care what God thinks of me!! I choose to let God’s life pour in and over me to be filled to be spilled. I will let my God provide the lesser things of this world like food, clothing and dollars, while I surrender into His life deeper and deeper. To be a living blessing to others and a walking trophy of His Grace on display to the world, so be it, caring only for God to be glorified, no matter what the world thinks!!
Heb 11:24 “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter;
Heb 11:25 “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
Heb 11:26 “Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
Heb 11:27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible
We walk in the Nonsense of Faith, seeing Him in the Spirit, heart to heart, Him who is invisible, yet more real to us as we have Him as our substance and evidence, now no longer hoped for but Lived upon!!